


roses die.

by filzmonster



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: F/M, Gen, as a surprise to absolutely no one this kinda escalated, pandoraheartssecretsanta, phsecretsanta2017, whups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filzmonster/pseuds/filzmonster
Summary: Jack dies. (Except that he doesn't.) Lacie's soul is destroyed. (Except that it isn't.)





	roses die.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Secret Santa Gift to riftmage27 (on tumblr) as part of the Pandora Hearts Secret Santa ... thing on tumblr. I hope you like it! (It turned out to be a lot more dramatic than I'd intended for it to be, but - oh well.) I wish you a Merry Christams and a couple of nice holidays! :)  
> The lyrics I used are from Everytime You Kissed Me by Emily Bindiger.

joys of the daylight – shadows of the starlight  
everything was sweet by your side, my love.  
ruby tears have come to me, for your last words.  
I'm here just singing my song of woe -   
waiting for you, my love;

 

 

 

  

Dying was just another way of taking a deep breath.

One moment if felt like he was suffocating, his lungs burning, his body aching; the next moment it was all gone. There is still a smile on his lips.

He remembers. He remembers how it felt to have lips, to have a body, to really _breathe_. He remembers for a second and then the memory is gone and his soul is all alone in the darkness.

He remembers this, too.

Remembers standing in the darkness. His soul bare and vulnerable. Remembers a light. Remembers shattering, bursting.

He has known what rejection feels like, has experienced it all his life, but nothing of that mortal, humanly rejection could have ever prepared him for what it felt like to be rejected by the Light. By the Paradise.

But the Abyss had cast his soul away, had reflected it like a mirror, not granting him guidance and instead trapping him in the vicious circle of his own body.

Maybe he’s finding himself standing in the Dark once more because this is what is ultimately left. He is dead. For good. The last piece of his soul has reached its limit. A part of him hopes that he’ll lose consciousness soon, hopes he doesn’t have to spend eternity in this weightless Nothing surrounding him.

Another part of him doesn’t care.

He’s long since gotten used to cold and lonely.

When the humming starts, he thinks it’s just another memory again.

(He has a body and he’s cold and it hurts and someone is dragging him through empty streets and dark alleys. She’s dancing in bloody rain, her white dress and her black hair twirling around her fragile form, her voice carrying in the biting winter air. She is beautiful and utterly terrifying.)

But then the singing starts and he realizes that he doesn’t, _can’t_ , remember the lyrics.

(They’ve been erased a long time ago. Not completely, not entirely. Sometimes he was able to catch a word, a sentence, a phrase, a piece of the chorus, a fragment of a line. But never a whole verse.)

He turns around and around and around, but he can’t see what he wants to see.

The Darkness is all-consuming, all-engulfing.

He stumbles a few steps in one direction, thinks the music is coming from his left. Then it’s coming from his right and he’s turning, it’s coming from behind and he’s whirling, he’s dancing by himself in absolute blackness, trying to chase an incorporeal voice, _he’s lost_.

She stops singing and he’s alone again and he remembers his soul shattering, remembers how it felt to be ripped apart and scattered into the wind; it is _nothing_ compared to this. This feeling of having nothing left, of being nothing, of having lost everything all over again, having lost _her_ all over again.

Then there’s a speck of light.

Just a tiny, pale thing, suddenly appearing before him, illuminating the Darkness not enough to matter.

(Or maybe it does. Maybe in this kind of darkness, every little light matters.)

There’s a second one. And a third. And suddenly he is surrounded by them, bathed in golden shimmering drops of Light.

It’s almost blinding.

He closes his eyes (no, not really his eyes, his soul’s eyes) and when he opens them again, she’s standing in front of him. The Light is dancing around her, gently wrapping its soft rays around her like silk.

She smiles.

“You haven’t changed at all, Jack”, she says. “You still have that lost look in your eyes. That wide gaze when you look at me. You poor thing.”

There is no malice in her voice. No anger. No judgment.

Jack can only stare at her.

It must be a dream, must be another memory, must be his soul losing its last shred of sanity, must be _something_ , but can’t be her.

“Lacie”, he says, and he remembers this, too. Remembers saying her name with lips and a tongue and teeth. Remembers how it echoed inside his head and how it fell from his mouth and how it made Oswald’s eyes turn cold and sad and how it made her eyes turn into burning rubies.

Memory is a precious, precious thing.

Her smile widens. “It is good to see you again. Although my brother probably wouldn’t be to pleased to hear me say that.” She laughs at her own words, as if this is a joke. As if Oswald’s fury is a joke and not something that Jack has brought upon himself by trying to throw the entire world into the Darkness. Her beloved world. This damned Darkness.

“H-How?”, he finds himself asking, finds himself wondering, finds himself wishing. “Y-Your soul – he said it was destroyed!”

Oswald wouldn’t lie about that, would he. Not even to hurt Jack. Oswald is not that kind of man. Not the kind of man Jack has been.

“Well, it definitely was. Or will be”, Lacie says, the amusement never leaving her voice. “But the Abyss is a timeless place. Cause and effect do not exist here. My soul is destroyed but at the same time it is not. Not yet.”

He doesn’t understand, except that he does.

“Then what are you doing here?”

It’s wrong. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s beautiful and engulfed in Light. He’s hideous and surrounded by Darkness. They shouldn’t be able to meet. Yet, she is here, and Jack doesn’t understand. 

(Except that he does.)

The curve of her lips is perfect, a radiant light on its own. “Isn’t that obvious, silly? I came to see you one last time. There’s still something you have to tell me, after all.”

And there is, isn’t there.

One last thing he wants to tell her.

One last thing she needs to hear.

One last thing he needs to say.

His soul is wrapped in Darkness and he doesn’t know what will happen to him after this. But it hardly matters. He has stopped caring such a long time ago.

As always, the only thing that matters is Lacie.

_I've seen the world from every possible angle. This cruel, ridiculous, beautiful world._

_Next time … come looking for me._

_It’s not true that you’ve lost everything._

_Just as I though, you are strange._

_Up until now I hadn't realized that disappearing from this world …_ _no longer being able to be by your side …_ _would be so lonely._

He tells her.


End file.
